Messages

16

Dream Interpretation / Re: gold coins

« on: December 28, 2011, 05:23:34 PM »

Dear Tony,

I was so happy to see that you had given me the honor of a reply!  Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post (I know it was long!) and also unexpectedly, for visiting my site!  Thank you for your time and vision.  You provided a host of new insights that I had never considered and for that I am tremendously grateful.

Regarding the 1930s: I have always been attracted to that age.  As a child I would read book after book by survivors of the Holocaust and of people from gangs in inner cities.  I was horrified by what they had endured and I guess I hoped to gain some insight into the depths of human nature on all ends of the spectrum.  (It may also have to do with moon in Scoprio.)  As I have grown older and have heard accounts from people especially from West and Central Africa who have been through devastating civil wars, have lost limbs or hidden for days in forests, that sort of thing, I am amazed by their endurance and by the issue of forgiveness.  I want to know how a human being goes through the worst situations imaginable and then comes back to forgive and to move on in life, altered, yes, but move on and even prosper.

My parents invested their lives in helping others so it's a super-strong pull on that level.  And my family has a very intense immigration story as well and I am the keeper of the family archives.  So that time-period--also during which my parents were born--is fascinating to me.  It holds people's dreams and visions for the future; it holds the Great Depression, huge discrepancies between the haves and the have-nots (though in my experience I have seen that exemplified all my life).

I have been thinking for a long time about writing a book.  One of the things I like the most about shows about this era is the ingenuity and the ruthlessness portrayed--but most of all, the writing.  It's superb.  I wonder what it would be like to tell a story--and incidentally that is just what one of my mentors was talking about two weeks ago: the ability to tell a good story.

I think my family stories are epic and I think they hold tremendous value.  Part of me is reticent to go back to them because I have spent my life mining my family for artistic information and now I just want to live my own life and start anew.  So that's a big factor in *not* going that route.

But the subject of writing has come up a lot and I have often thought of taking my student interviews (from an assignment given each semester) and creating a book.  These are interviews with people, parents, others who were witness to a specific time period that we study.  All of those stories together would form an amazing testament to the mid-20th century.  I am not sure, though, because I may move away from teaching next year.  Again, I feel stuck in a time-period that is not mine.  I want to live *now*, be present, not always thinking about the past!!!

Thank you so much for the beautiful information about gold!  I love gold though I have some guilt about wearing it given where most of it comes from.  Wow!  So gold is pieces of exploded sun!  I am very connected with Ogun, the Yoruba god of alchemy, fuser of metals?

I continue to meditate on the number 23.  I still don't know what it could mean apart from a ballpark number of what I might win from a local grocery store contest!  I have studied it but still not sure so I will leave it and ask that the answer be revealed.

Thank you again *so* very much for your insights!  You and your site are amazing.

Xochitl

17

Dream Interpretation / Re: gold coins

« on: November 29, 2011, 04:07:20 AM »

Greetings!

I stumbled upon your site and really appreciate the way that you write about dreams.  I am hoping you might shed some light on a dream I had last night that I feel is very important.  It might be interesting to note that I moved the direction of my bed recently and since then, I went from having no dreams (or rarely) to having vivid dreams every night as I used to all of my growing up years.

Some years ago (7), I became friends with a well-known and very personable art collector in the city where I live.  He is well-respected in the art community, has purchased and supported my work by coming to museum exhibitions, and has become a friend, someone with whom I share a birthday month as well as similar views on the world.  He recently invited me to work on a project at the building where he lives.  Also, I just did a feng shui exercise last night where I put a picture of a waterfall in my front entrance way to increase wealth luck and have been meditating a lot on wealth, abundance, as well as my desire to help others (homeless, veterans and women's shelters) and dealing with inherited guilt around acquisition of money.  Also, much of my recent work has involved actual floating gold pieces from the ceiling--purposefully created as a meditation on abundance for all--and I recently had a show where there were some issues with the installation and I felt very disappointed by the art world.  So!  That is the framework that may provide extra insight into the symbols in this dream.

In the dream, the collector and I were standing in the 2-3 story lobby of a stately old building, like a bank or government building built in the early 1900s (a period of time that I find fascinating and have been watching a lot of prohibition-era type films and t.v.) with marble walls and floors and lots of sculpted detailing on the cornices and pillars.

There were people around, going about their business, paying us little mind, some I think in period dress--the men in hats and suit coats at least--while he and I were in regular casual clothing as usual.  Just he and I were standing around some velvet stantions (as used at museum shows or theater events to block off areas) located in the central area of the lobby which were arranged around a pile of old coins.  The pile of coins took up probably about 5 feet diameter (?) and the pile at that point was maybe two feet high.

It was understood that this pile was an accumulation of coins that people were dropping by to donate/add to the pile.  The coins were mostly tarnished and were from people's own personal collections, stuff they had inherited or that was collecting dust in their attics but they knew there was some value.  The feeling I got was that they said, hey, let's give a coin or two to the pile, watch it grow and maybe if you can find use for this old thing my grandmother gave me, so much the better.  All very amiable.  Like how people give old fur knowing it has value but knowing they themselves won't do anything with it so they give it to the artist.

People were coming in an giving us coins to add to the pile and we were just kind of watching it; at one point, he spoke with some people--higher ups?--about another project perhaps?  Then we were just talking, hanging out.   Then the collector came over to me and gave me a really shiny bright gold coin that was large, maybe the size of a large chocolate foil coin except it was solid gold and it had the number 23 on it embossed.  And he was excited as if saying wow!  look at this!  I knew that meant $23 million dollars we had won or that was coming our way.  And he gave it to me almost as if he didn't really care to keep it one way or another, was more excited by the fact of the coin, and then I ran across the sandy street (California? a place I long to move and have family) to go up to a homeless shelter on the sandy hill where I was helping out and ate lunch with the residents.  I was running and my pants were baggy and was nervous that I'd drop the $23 million dollar coin on the road or lose it.

In a later dream, I was helping an acquaintance (not from real life) get on a bus with her child and I was then trying to get off and got off later so I overpaid by a dollar and could have gotten it back but I left the $1.  Then felt guilty because that $1 meant a lot to the woman and child.  I berated myself because I knew that at some point I might need that $1 and shouldn't be so flippant with my money.  I went in search of crushed ice and coconut water to add to the juice in my to-go cup, walked through my old neighborhood (actual) and figured I didn't need to spend for the ice.  I could buy coconut milk at the store and crush ice in my own blender at home.

I would so appreciate any thoughts on this dream, especially the first part.  I know it's significant....